As tribute to Dorian Dawkins, Saginaw students learn CPR

As Thompson Middle School student Aaliyah Wilson helped teach other students cardiopulmonary resuscitation Wednesday in memory of Dorian S. Dawkins, she knew how the lesson might apply outside class.

“This is good practice because this is like real life,” said Wilson, 14, one of 740 students at the Saginaw school learning CPR as a tribute to Dawkins, 14, who died in June after collapsing during a basketball game in a tournament at Michigan State University.

Dawkins, son of Saginaw High School varsity basketball coach Lou Dawkins and Latricia Dawkins, principal of Loomis Math, Science and Technology Academy, died because of heart problems related to a defective coronary artery, doctors said.

“It’s kind of hard to believe,” Wilson said. “When I found out what happened, I was shocked and scared.”

Lou Dawkins kicked off Hoops for Heart at the school, 3021 Court, last week, delivering two talks to students in the gym. Dawkins said his son’s death — at a young age, because of a heart problem — has increased interest in heart-related issues.

“It’s not just at Thompson Middle School, but all across the city and state,” Dawkins said. “It’s making a lot of families aware of heart disease and making them aware of something they weren’t paying attention to before.”

“A lot of kids have grown up with him. I saw some kids writing his son’s name on their arms after Lou Dawkins talked to them.”

Wilson and other students belonging to the school’s Young Educators Society helped their classmates learn CPR skills Wednesday as part of the school’s Hoops for Heart program.

The American Heart Association provided more than $20,000 to buy each student a CPR Anytime kit students received Wednesday. Youths get to keep the kits, which include an instructional DVD and an inflatable head/torso device — known as “Mini Anne” — allowing them to practice CPR basics.

“The DVD trains the individual. You don’t have to have a CPR-trained professional doing it,” said Jennifer Carpenter of Munger, a youth market director for the American Heart Association.

Wilson joined with fellow Young Educators Society members Ivori Smith, Alexis R. Lopez, Delilah S. Mora and DeJoiry T. McKenzie-Simmons to help teach three sessions of CPR skills in the school auditorium. Other students, along with staff, held CPR sessions for students in the school media center and gymnasium.

“I know enough about CPR now to at least be able to perform it if I had to,” said Lopez, 12, a seventh-grader.

Troshawn M. Mcmillontgilchrist 11/4/09 cq lower-case second ‘m’, 12, polished up his CPR skills, with seventh-graders Trenton Cork and Jordan Baker facilitating the lesson in the gym. Mcmillon, a sixth-grader, used his hands to do chest compressions on the inflatable device, which makes a clicking sound when a person pushes with the proper force on the device.

“I’m learning how hard I have to push,” Mcmillon said. “If somebody was to collapse, I learned how to do this and help them. When you push on (the inflatable device) hard, it clicks, so you know you’re doing it right.”

Thompson students have raised more than $800 so far for Hoops for Heart, Carpenter said.

Foley has promised to play a game of one-on-one basketball — in front of a student’s entire grade of classmates — against the top fundraising students.